


Bad Habits Rubbin Off On You

by orphan_account



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just a scouting mission with a newspark in tow. Easy work.<br/>But Primus below is it ever exasperating with this bot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Habits Rubbin Off On You

**Author's Note:**

> Haha hey this is my first time writing a fic since I was fifteen, so forgive me if it's subpar in any way. It features an OC of mine named Maelstrom, who is a Predacon. He is a predacon because: I like dragons, and I wanted a dragon, and I wanted Predaking to not have to watch what was essentially his entire species die off in one explosion so I gave him this asshole- and then there's predacon courting and social dynamics and all kinds of headcanons that don't come into play in this oneshot.  
> Anyway, if you're not fond of OC/canon character relationships (not that this is romantic at all unless you squint extremely hard), there's your heads-up. Thanks!

He's been sent on patrol with the fledgling again.

What an absolute joy.

Predaking felt that such a task was far beneath him. His lord had more than enough vehicons and eradicons for this kind of task, surely. And he was growing suspicious of the motives behind these prolonged and seemingly pointless scouting missions he and Maelstrom were being sent on lately.

He was, however, quite sure that it would be more bearable without the stockier predacon tailing behind him, poking around at every tree and bush and peering under rocks and logs as if he expected to find something beyond crawling, slithering, and oozing organic lifeforms. It seemed unbecoming of a race as noble as theirs- but every time he attempted to make that point to the insolent young mech he was met with optic rolling and the occasional blatant disrespect. It was as if Maelstrom didn’t realize or didn’t _care_ that Predaking was his superior, and could destroy him without much effort.  


It left Predaking a bit dismayed. (After all, serving under Megatron means you don't learn much about leadership except ''punch subordinate until they obey''.)  


He tried to focus on the task at hand, rather than on the aggravating mech tagging along with him. It worked passably, he only rarely had to snap at Maelstrom to get him to keep up. (He knew, of course, that he was considerably shorter than Predaking, rendering the task of ‘keeping up’ a bit of a struggle. It would have been easier without his insatiable curiosity.) They’d nearly completed their circuit when he heard a startled, pleased chirp behind him, coupled with the telltale small thump and the shift of plating that indicated Maelstrom had hopped in excitement at- something. He turned slightly, with the intent of issuing some sort of reprimand (regardless of his logical reasoning telling him that it would do no more good this time than any other) and he managed to turn _just _in time to see Maelstrom stick something into his mouth.  
__

Something green and flat and decidedly organic.  


A leaf. Wait. A _leaf_?  


He was speechless, stopped in his tracks, staring at the mech he was unfortunately obligated to call a wingmate. He hadn’t really just seen that, he couldn’t have just seen that.  


He must have, though, because Maelstrom’s optics were wide and bright and his shoulders were pulled up high. His field flickered with a mix of surprise/awkwardness/embarrassment, and that coupled with his body language gave him away even as he shook his head vehemently. Predaking hadn’t even questioned it yet.  


“Why d- Why are you… attempting to consume the Earth vegetation..?” Typically far more eloquent than this; it was a testament to Predaking’s confusion that he only managed a halting inquiry of this…. behavior.  


Maelstrom’s faceplates flushed with color. The stocky predacon slowly, hesitantly lifted a servo to remove the offending leaf from his mouth, and then attempted- unconvincingly- to seem surprised about it.  


“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t eat leafs. It. Uh. It fell into my mouth.”  


Predaking blinked slowly, spiralling (internally) into further bewilderment and despair at the future of his kind.  


“I see. It fell into your mouth.” He turned around and began walking again, pressing one claw between his optics and exhaling a long, exasperated ventilation. “Am I to assume that all the very small pebbles which you return to the Nemesis with find their way into your subspace and mouth in the same way? They just fall in?” At that, he can feel the flustered disruption in Maelstrom’s EM field even several paces ahead of the mech, to say nothing of the rather indignant chirp he heard with it. Were he of a more petty disposition, he might have taken pleasure in causing such a reaction. Instead, he just kneads between his optics again. His sole surviving subject was- bizarre, and incomprehensible to him, and why couldn’t some other predacon clone have survived the Autobot attack instead of Maelstrom?  


Maelstrom took to following behind him again, field still radiating a combination of embarrassment/indignance- and a shadow of smugness. Because, of course, Maelstrom would be the one of a slightly more petty disposition. Nothing like _Starscream_ , certainly. But neither could he quite reign in the need to be, as a human (or Maelstrom himself, unfortunately) might say, ‘a little shit’.  


“Wait- You’re not, uh, gonna tell anybody about this, though… right?” It seemed to have occurred to him that perhaps he should be concerned about his reputation. No need for him to become the laughingstock of the Nemesis again. Predaking exvented for what felt like the thousandth time that cycle.  


“I highly doubt that our lord would care very much about your… proclivities… regarding the detritus you find on this planet.” And Predaking certainly wasn’t going to gossip about it to any of the rest of the crew, if only because he didn’t want any misconceptions about his own habits. He was not like his new companion, thank you very much. Maelstrom scoffed, apparently offended, and bounded up to walk alongside the taller mech. At first, Predaking assumed he was offended at the implication that Megatron wouldn’t care. Sadly, that was not the case.  


“It’s not detritus, detritus is garbage! Leafs and flowers and rocks are not garbage.”  


“Neither are they any kind of sustenance for our kind.” (He didn’t know why he even tried to argue anymore. There was never any point. Maelstrom was bewilderingly stubborn.)  


Maelstrom twisted his mouth in an unimpressed frown. “Says you.” (And not particularly mature.)  


“Says the entirety of our species, says our medic, says your fuel tank and the rest of your frame.” (It’s like he chose to be willfully illogical. Predaking came to the conclusion that while he had spent much of his early time with Shockwave (what of his time had not been spent being shockprodded by Starscream), Maelstrom did not have that dubious advantage.)  


“Don’t even give me that, that’s- that’s just-” He could feel the imminent use of a human term in the conversation, looming dreadfully at the edges of Maelstrom’s disorganized vocabulary banks.  


“Don’t.” (Why could Maelstrom not adopt the regality befitting him. Why couldn’t he take a cue from his leader(s).)  


Instead of complying with Predaking’s unspoken hopes, Maelstrom squinted, mouth twisting in a more defiant pout. “It’s bullshit.” Predaking sighed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He is above such displays. He tells himself this. He almost believes it. Maelstrom is beginning to rub off on him. He is not certain he likes it. It should be the other way around.  


He exhales. “No, it is fact. You are not meant to ingest leaves. I was under the impression that only the organic 'herbivores’ eat plants.”  


“Well, yeah, but I mean- I don’t eat them, I. I don’t eat them. They just taste good and feel nice in my mouth.” Predaking looks down, brow ridges raised skeptically despite his resignation.  


“Really.” The statement comes out so drily he almost feels bad. Almost.  


Maelstrom’s faceplates color again and he has the nerve to whap Predaking in the arm. Gently. He’s getting too comfortable with his leader, and yet it is just one more thing Predaking is slowly becoming resigned to dealing with. “Yes, really! You just don’t understand because you’ve never tried it.”  


Oh no. No no no _no_. Predaking could see where this would be going if he did not put a halt to it immediately- 'you don’t know because you’ve never tried! here, put this leaf in your mouth, PK!’- absolutely not. He just wanted to finish this questionable assignment- and a fine job he was doing, Megatron would be so pleased, if he knew that his scouts today were spending more time discussing the ingestion of earth organic matter than they were searching for signs of energon, even if it was just busywork- and return to the Nemesis, and attempt to guide this very small and impudent predacon into being a creature worth bearing the name.  


Yes, that would be acceptable. Instead of letting the little bot corrupt Predaking’s own disposition and convince him to put a leaf in his mouth. He quickened his pace, as if he could outrun the inevitable, forcing Maelstrom to dash alongside him to have any hope of keeping up.  


“Hey, what’s the big idea, PK? It’s not like you gotta get all grouchy 'cause you’ve never tried a leaf, Primus- could you slow down? Look I found a really pretty leaf for you, here-”  


“No. And get your leaf out of my face.” Maelstrom had indeed been waving a leaf in Predaking’s face, grinning and looking all to pleased with himself about it. Instead of respectfully withdrawing the offending foliage, he huffed and waved it a little closer, directly in front of Predaking’s optics, before impaling it on a spine on his helm and leaving it there. He may have said something along the lines of ‘fine, save it for later’, but Predaking was not listening.  


He faltered for a brief moment, closed his eyes, exvented slowly, and did not acknowledge Maelstrom for the remainder of the patrol, and eventually Maelstrom stopped trying to get his attention with yet more vegetation and fell behind him again.  


The leaf stayed on Predaking’s helm all the way back to the Nemesis, and would not have the decency to remove itself until he deliberately plucked it off in the washracks later.  


He would not admit it to anybody, but he held it for a moment, contemplating. And then promptly scoffed and tossed it away. He would not be dragged into the peculiar habits of his wingmate.  


Not today.

**Author's Note:**

> Well??? You have reached the end. Thank u. Tell me what you think- idk if PK is ooc too much, or at all, I really wrote this for myself but there's so few works with TFP Predaking that I wanted to share. There will probably be more works at some point with Maelstrom and PK, because I'm low on shame and self control.
> 
> (I'll also mention here that I encourage selfshipping and shipping OCs with canon characters... I will take requests to write ficlets such as this one over at my tumblr... Hmu over there if u feel like it...)


End file.
